Planning a trip, a wedding or a home project? Track it as one expense group
Big events spread spending across weeks, cards and people. Group every expense, and any money that comes back, to see the real cost of a trip, wedding or renovation.
"How much did the Goa trip actually cost?" Hardly anyone knows. The flights went on one card three months ago, the hotel on another, food and cabs on UPI, and a friend paid you back for their share in cash. Monthly reports blur it all together.
Weddings, home renovations, a child's school admission, a festival: any big event has the same problem. The answer is to track it as one group, alongside your normal categories.
What an expense group does
An expense group collects every entry for one event, however you paid and whenever it happened:
- Total spent, by category: travel, stay, food, shopping, gifts
- Money that came back: friends' shares, a refund, gifts received, a reimbursement from work
- Net cost: what the event really cost you
- Against a budget, if you set one
Your normal monthly categories stay as they are. The group is an extra view of the same entries.
Examples
- Trip: flights, hotel, cabs, food, activities; income: friends' shares, a cancelled booking refund.
- Wedding in the family: clothes, jewellery, gifts, travel, catering contribution; income: shagun received, family contributions.
- Home renovation: materials, labour, furniture, appliances; income: selling the old sofa, a cashback.
- Festival: gifts, sweets, decor, clothes; income: a festive bonus.
How to set one up
- Create the group before the event, with an emoji and a budget.
- Add entries to it as you go, including bookings paid months earlier.
- Record money coming back as income in the same group, so the net cost is right.
- Look back afterwards. What went over, and what would you do differently?
Groups in Dhuddu
In the Dhuddu Android app, open More → Groups and tap New group. Give it a name, pick an emoji and, if you like, set a budget. When you add an expense or income, pick the group in the entry form. Each group shows spent, received and net, a budget bar, a category breakdown and every entry in it.
Groups work with transfers too: a hotel booked on your credit card is an expense in the trip group, and paying the card bill later is a transfer, so the trip isn't counted twice.
Next time someone asks how much the trip cost, you'll know to the rupee.